"Again I'm telling you, there is a magical force which gives you undreamt-of power in your art. The common human being is distracted, worried, anguished, and tormented by a thousand things in the face of which they are completely, utterly helpless. Their life strength, which is barely sufficient already to carry them through the regular activities of the day, is insignificant in the face of all the efforts, the suffering, the discipline and the skill demanded by the realization of their endeavours in Art. For Art is not natural to any of you, but it is the transcendental expression of your higher being, the manifestation of the strength you never thought you had. And so soon as you start working on a difficult passage, or a difficult work, or the perfectionment of a difficult-to-obtain faculty, you are taken with anguish at the realization that had you a hundred years of uninterrupted work you wouldn't have enough time, and as it is, you have not an hour's worth in the day to dedicate to that endeavour!
"But there is a magical force which can give you the results of a lifetime of work in but a year, of a year in but a month, of a month in but a week, of a week in a day and of a day in an hour! I am not misleading you: it is no deception. The sunray which is so harmless in its usual refraction is deadly to the leaf when concentrated by a magnifying glass upon that same leaf; and so is it with the power of the mind. The mind is the sunray, the work is the leaf, and that magnifying glass, which makes tenfold the power of the energy source, what is it? Concentration! No force is greater than it, no magic more powerful, and it is the only secret. The mind entirely absorbed in its concern is capable of things which appear superhuman to the common mortal. The precious faculty of thought, which you so constantly & so unfortunately disperse & waste in so many useless things at once, must be concentrated in its entirety on the object of its endeavour, in order to be of any use. Any work that is accomplished with a distracted mind is useless, whatever its nature; but any work that is performed with no other work in mind, with all the energy & passion of interest and utter Concentration, is a success before it is even attempted. There is no attempt that absolute Concentration cannot carry to success; no difficulty it cannot even out; no obstacle it cannot overcome.
"So work on that faculty of Concentration, and you'll have developed a tool for your doubtless success: and no other force in nature can reach to its height, and it is within yourself; anyone, even the least gifted, have it in their power! It is the gift of Nature to you, and therefore a divine gift, but you alone can put it to good use. You alone can concentrate your force of thought, and make it proof to all the distractions that may divert you from your work and your perfectionment; you alone can rouse your own inner passion towards your endeavour, and make it a fire that nothing exterior can still; you alone build that impregnable fortress of the mind, which banishes all drudgery of not doing enough, of not advancing fast enough, of being drowned under the weight of a thousand worries & a thousand threats. And when you have done this, and fear has vanished from your mind, then your mind becomes clear as the still mountain lake, and ready to receive the dictates of your aspiration: to make you into exactly what you want to be."
-The Living Dancer
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